hello and welcome to my easy to understand guide to stranger things and industry this video is going to be particularly relevant for you if you are studying ocr a level media studies a stranger things is currently one of the optional set tv dramas available to study on that specification the show was created by two men who we will refer to as the duffer brothers the duffer brothers grew up in the 1980s it's one of their favorite decades and you can see that influence within the show itself they also grew up massive fans of big film directors like steven spielberg and m night shyamalan so you can also see the influence from their films within stranger things the tv series lots of focus on science fiction strange paranormal goings-on in fact when the duffer brothers were pitching their idea to various production companies they actually used a stephen king book cover that they'd edited and put on the front of their pitch document just to really make it clear what kind of atmosphere and tone they were going for within the program the company that accepted the pitch was called 21 laps entertainment they had experience in both film and tv and one of the things they really wanted to do with the series was to try and do as many of the effects in camera and what that means is they didn't want too much cgi they didn't want a lot of green screen or blue screen they wanted to be able to do lots of effects using things like animatronics costumes makeup that kind of thing they felt that that would make it more exciting and also give it that more 80s feel as well to really make it kind of feel vintage 22 lapse entertainment did a deal with netflix now doing a deal with netflix and being able to actually put your um idea into tv rather than film was really good for them originally the duffer brothers had thought this was going to be a film but they were worried there was going to be too much to put in a sort of hour and a half two hour film but they were also concerned that if it was going to be a tv program most standard tv programs in america have 22 episodes in a series and they were very concerned that if they had to stretch the material out over 22 episodes it would get a bit boring and dull doing the deal with netflix meant that they could veer away from that convention of 22 episodes in a series and netflix would allow them the creativity to reduce that number of episodes right down and they felt that made the series have a more filmic quality and it also they felt kept the end episodes more interesting and entertaining it didn't stretch the program out too far it meant that there were going to be no ad breaks because it was going to be a netflix exclusive and this meant that they could um therefore go to product placement as a way of making extra money so instead of charging advertisers money to place their ads in the breaks they instead charged brands to actually place their products within the show and that's how they raise some extra funds towards the program the great thing about netflix and the thing that's made it particularly popular is this idea of binge watch culture the idea that you can watch the entire series at once if you wish to and that's very different from how tv dramas used to be shown on kind of normal terrestrial tv channels stranger things did incredibly well on netflix it got 15 million viewers in 35 days which is a huge amount having that number of viewers obviously netflix can track who's watching it and for how long meant that netflix knew immediately this program was going to be a massive success and therefore commissioned a second series so netflix gave the funding for the show and the funding was 48 million dollars which is quite a high budget for a tv series um it particularly allows them to do what's called like big set pieces so things that would be quite tricky to film in a real location um you know some of the uh shots they showed inside the kind of basement of the laboratory with the kind of monster nest um so lots of big set pieces it allowed for special effects it allowed for stunts it allowed for the in-camera special effects and it allowed for some cast members to be chosen that might draw in an audience so for example winona ryder a well-known actress would draw in those audiences particularly older audiences who would recognize her from films from the 80s having cast like winona ryder and matthew modine really helped to reduce the risk of the show having celebrities obviously is a great way of drawing in audiences it makes your program more marketable there are lots of intertextual references within the show to other pop culture products so references to films like et in there because the duffer brothers liked et but also a great way of adding a sense of nostalgia for an audience and these intertextual references can really help to minimize the risk of your products because they're familiar to audiences and they help to draw people in these products like et were already massively successful in the past so recreating a kind of tv series based on a similar idea it helps to minimize your risk and hopefully maximize your profits the sci-fi genre has always been very very popular so making a tv series based in this genre is always going to be a good fit for a company and adding this mix in of teen drama kind of coming of age drama storylines as well as something sort of things a little bit paranormal a little bit horror a little bit comedy this real mix of very popular genres helps to really maximize your profits because netflix is not governed by ofcom the regulatory board for tv and radio it means that they can get away with putting things in their shows that are perhaps more controversial or dark in terms of content so having a show about kids um where essentially there's people being murdered there's quite a lot of horror style iconography it could be deemed quite scary and there are certainly quite a lot of gore um within the series that appeals to an adult audience it's potentially not something that a tv production company could get away with if the show was going to be on a mainstream channel but they can get away with it on netflix being on netflix means there's no kind of watershed are you they're not putting it on like after a certain time in the schedule there are no schedules on netflix so it does kind of make the regulation of tv uh products really quite difficult having streaming sites anyone can watch it and they can watch it at any point of the day the marketing for the show was quite extensive so have a look at their social media channels so things like facebook twitter instagram etc they shared a lot of behind-the-scenes material fan art interviews with the cast and crew q a's and lots of announcements about the show as well that would help to promote it the use of social media obviously targets quite a modern audience that kind of age group between the ages of 16 and 40. social media also helps to target a global audience it's easy to like share and comment this material so it's a great way of broadening your show's appeal to people in other countries the show also received quite a lot of word of mouth marketing from fans and from celebrities as well people were talking about it online posting reviews about it on youtube celebrities were posting about it and this word of mouth marketing was really really good lots of audiences prefer the opinions of celebrities and real people two reviews that they actually find in the media we trust them more the producers of the show actually created a viral news report for bob's disappearance which was quite a good way of drawing in an audience it made it seem real for an audience and it was quite engaging to report on her as though she was really missing the cast and crew took part in several major chat shows in different countries around the world where they talked to the hosts they promoted the shows they took part in games and silly activities and that really helped to cement them as stars which then made the show more marketable as well they also did multiple magazine covers and magazine articles and that helps to target a slightly older target audience too netflix released a trailer on youtube a month before its release and that helped to drum up publicity it allowed audiences time to watch the trailer start to really like the show and to share it and build up anticipation they also made the unusual decision of releasing eight minutes of episode one uh on youtube before the series released on netflix that's quite unusual a big chunk of a show to be released uh prior to the actual kind of drop onto netflix and that was because they wanted to tease an audience with that sort of opening eight minutes they wanted audiences to get a chance to see what the show was really about hoping that if they saw this teaser chunk of the program they would be drawn into watching the rest of the series on netflix and that would in turn hopefully drive up the subscriptions to netflix too netflix also did partnerships with various people on platforms such as twitch so players on twitch um actually went to the set of stranger things and did a kind of live stream four-hour game marathon playing on the set of stranger things um some of them actually played with cast as well there was audience voting involved so using a variety of platforms to target different audiences don't forget twitch probably primarily a kind of reasonably young male gaming target audience who are going to be the same target audience for sort of sci-fi horror teen shows on netflix so a good way of targeting the same demographic they also included a 360 degree tour of the basement in stranger things as well so this kind of interactive elements for audiences uh felt quite exciting and entertaining on social media they used a variety of hashtags including justice for bob we are all bob and world of upside down and these hashtags help to drum up publicity they help to get posts about the show trending as well and they encouraged audience interaction particularly about characters such as bob where audiences felt really involved with her character and her narrative the show was nominated for several awards and the cast and crew attended those awards doing lots of walks up and down the red carpet and interviews and that again really helps to drum up publicity for the show too merchandise for the show is not necessarily going to be um a really big deal because it's a more horror type program they tend to avoid merchandise but there were things available like pop dolls there were posters available um you know that kind of thing was there for people who wanted it and that helped to make more profit too netflix also released a range of comics and books relating to the show as well so again targeting young and mostly male audiences one of the most expensive marketing techniques they used was to feature a trailer for the series in the super bowl ad break super bowl ad breaks are notorious for being incredibly expensive to advertise in but it is an incredible way of reaching a massive audience billions of people around the world so that was a really key marketing tool in targeting a really mass global audience they formed a synergetic partnership with hasbro the toy company and they produced a um version of stranger things version of the dungeons and dragons game so a kind of tie-in with the show the game the characters play in the show having a tv thing themed version of that board game really helpful to draw in audiences of these kind of nostalgic games too eventually there was also a mobile game as well to target sort of reasonably young casual gamers and there was also lego released for stranger things too so again targeting a reasonably young target audience they also had stranger things uh skins available on fortnite so they did have promotions on there as well so again a lot of marketing materials aimed at targeting a reasonably young male target audience the casting crew also went to comic-con as well comic-con is a great way of targeting those opinion leaders so that they will then spread word of mouth about the show so they did interviews there they released versions of the trailer they teased the next season of the show as well they even had various versions of the character dustin actually peddling these kind of pedicabs for fans around comic-con so targeting fans of the show who would maybe recognize the people dressed up in his kind of costume some of the marketing materials uh were kind of quite gorilla marketing where they were almost bending the versions of reality within the show so there were big billboards for the company that is featured in the show it's a fictional company called hawkins power and light and these billboards were featured um near comic-con and also around america with um a 1 800 number to call if you were having problems with your power so um it's kind of merging the show with reality and that helps to draw in an audience and feel as though the show is more real netflix also formed synergetic partnerships with companies like burger king and coke not just in product placement but also for promoting the film outside of the actual series as well so for example they had stranger things themed coke cans and they had an upside down whopper at burger king netflix promoted the show by releasing a range of posters and the interesting thing was that they decided to include those intertextual references to all these 80s movies to add that element of nostalgia for audiences so you can see a huge range of posters each one might be familiar to an audience that grew up enjoying 80s cult movies netflix also worked with universal studios around the world to create a stranger things a halloween experience at some of their studios and netflix worked with facebook lens as well to create a special lens for stranger things one of the later series but it added that element of fun for a lot of audiences who like interactive things netflix also promoted the show by creating these uh fake kind of upside down style buses that used to drive around big cities um and this obviously created a little bit of stir amongst the public got a lot of people taking photos because of how unusual they are netflix also worked to create real world events as well so things like a stranger things themed fun fair as though it is the real fun fair from the show and these kind of drummed up publicity and also encouraged real kind of um super fans of the show to meet up and share their ideas about stranger things so that was my easy to understand guide to stranger things and industry don't forget to check out my channel i've got other videos about stranger things coming soon as well as the other set texts for ocr too if you've got a video that you would like that i don't already have on my channel please feel free to leave a comment below i do read them i will make a list and i'll see what i can do